The ideal user experience for a network-based product is often a moving target, based on the density of the network.
If your app’s value improves with each additional user (e.g., from more content or more users interacting with you), then you should likely sacrifice the user… Show more
Not sure if anything changed my approach to work and engineering in the past five years more than this passage from @Lethain, written in the context of staff engineering but much more broadly applicable.
There is no ideal pitch deck. The narrative depends on what you’re building—but I really like this one:
1. Vision for the world in 5 years
2. The novel wedge that will get you there
3. How you plan to distribute it
4. What could go wrong
5. What you’ll prove by the time you need… Show more
Capabilities are binary, you can either do it or not. Benefits are the results of new capabilities.
Banned: "longer battery life"
Capability: "all-day battery"
Benefit: "leave your charger at home"
what if public libraries were open late every night and we could engage in public life there instead of having to choose between drinking at the bar and domestic isolation
@stephsmithio A few that I like:
What’s something people wouldn’t know about you by looking at you?
What’s one proud moment from your life?
What’s bringing you joy recently?
What’s a product you bought recently that you absolutely love?
What book have you read the most times?
Novices seek praise. Recognizing strengths builds confidence to keep going.
Experts crave criticism. Seeing shortcomings reveals avenues to keep growing.
Preferring corrections to compliments is a sign of skill. The better you get, the more determined you become to get better.
The worst version of a fundraising ask is “we need $3M to give us 24 months of runway”.
The best version is “we need $3M to accomplish these 3 critical projects we have planned that will take us from X users/revenue to 5x in 18 months.
We need these 4 new positions to pull it… Show more
On the time YC cofounder @jesslivingston tore me a new one and changed the future org structure of Ramp:
At YC, we attended weekly office hours where every startup shared 1/ their weekly growth %, 2/ their biggest problem, and 3/ what they were doing to solve it.
That week in summer 2015 our startup Paribus had grown 20% w/w, our biggest problem ... See more